Текст книги "Sweet Jiminy: A Novel"

Автор книги: Kristin Gore

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 12 страниц)

Jiminy didn’t love the assignment, but she did it without complaint. Standing beside the open trunk of Willa’s car, she tossed three bulging bags of garbage one by one, up and over the Dumpster’s high metal wall. As she listened to the thuds of their landings, she was suddenly struck by how hollow she felt with Bo gone from her life. But she was filling up with other things, she told herself. It was important that she keep moving.

She turned to slam the trunk shut and felt something brush against her leg. The perpetrator, a gray kitten with two different colored eyes, doubled back for more contact. Jiminy’s grandmother had warned her that people used the dump to dispose of unwanted animals, and Jiminy had previously encountered the pack of feral dogs that roamed the nearby fields. She assumed this kitten had to be a recent arrival based on the fact that it was still alive.

One of the kitten’s eyes was brown, the other blue. The effect was disconcerting. Looking into its face, Jiminy felt for a second that she was being hypnotized. Later, she decided this might have been the reason she scooped up the kitten and put it in the seat next to her before driving off. She couldn’t account for it otherwise. She knew her grandmother wouldn’t allow her to keep it.

Before getting back on the main road, Jiminy stopped at a nearby hill, grabbed her backpack, and trekked to the top. The kitten followed her closely, picking its way through the long grass. Under a crabapple tree, Jiminy settled in the shade and looked down toward the river. The kitten climbed into her lap.

“Where’d you come from?” she asked it, wondering whether it was really as healthy as it appeared. The dump had to be an incubator for all kinds of disease.

“Maybe I’ll call you Cholera,” Jiminy said.

The kitten turned over and rubbed its chin on her hand.

In Jiminy’s opinion, Cholera was the most lyrically named of the deadly diseases. Jiminy opened her bag and took out her grandfather’s diary, along with another book her grandmother had given her upon her return from Texarkana. It was an old ledger detailing the business details of Henry Hunt’s Carpentry. Willa hadn’t said much when she handed it over, just that she hoped it might help.

The kitten was now purring in the grass beside Jiminy’s leg, a furry little motor humming against her skin. Jiminy was envious of how little it had taken for the creature to attain a level of contentment that caused it to physically vibrate. She found this amazing.

She flipped open the ledger, which appeared to be a fairly straightforward account of the woodworking business run by Henry and Edward. They’d sold handcrafted cradles, cabinets, beds, bureaus, doors, chairs, tables, and shelves in the first year alone. Jiminy knew that Edward had been the craftsman and her grandfather the sales agent, but this breakdown wasn’t reflected in the ledger. Along the left-hand side of the page was a list of all the paying customers, along with what they’d purchased and how they’d paid. Jiminy recognized many of the names. The Hatcherts had ordered a hand-carved chessboard. The Brayers had commissioned a table and chairs. The Connors had paid for a decorated front gate. All kinds of orders had been accepted, large and small.

After checking out each and every entry in the ledger, Jiminy turned her attention once more to her grandpa’s diary. With Carlos due to arrive in two days, she wanted to revisit all that she already knew. She wanted to feel as prepared as possible.

Looking at the June 24, 1966, entry gave her chills, just as it had before. “Edward and Jiminy found, buried.” Now that she knew more, she could better imagine how distraught her grandfather must have been as he’d written this. Henry and Edward had grown up together. They’d worked side by side in the carpentry business and on the farm, along with their wives and daughters. They’d been as close as family, according to Walton Trawler. The rest of Fayeville had apparently looked askance at the intimacy of their relationship, but that hadn’t stopped them from living their lives on their own terms. Only untimely death had stopped this, inflicted by a hatred that hunted and stalked and, finally, brutally pounced. What a world where that happened. Jiminy felt a searing anguish flash through her chest. She shut the diary and sank into the grass, laying her arm across her eyes to block the glare. There were times in her life, and this was one of them, when she wished she could just grow straight into the ground.

Chapter 11

Willa knelt on her knees by her bed, aware that this would be the proper position to take if she prayed. It was also the best position for fishing something out from underneath her mattress. She rooted around for a moment, grateful that she still had the flexibility for such a maneuver, and conscious that she was more than a little sore from her virtual tennis matches. Her hand finally found its target, which she slowly extracted.

She hadn’t looked at the album in years and she’d never shown it to anyone else. But now that Jiminy had brought Carlos here, and they were prying into what Willa had previously thought might stay buried forever, it seemed important to share its contents.

Henry had taken all the photos in the album, so when Willa looked at them, she imagined seeing the subjects live, from his perspective. There was a shot of Edward with a whittling knife. There was a shot of the house, which Henry and Edward had built by themselves. There was the big rock by the river, where they’d lain in the sun, warming themselves after plunges into the cold water. She imagined Henry capturing these moments in his careful way, determined to memorialize the people and places he loved best.

There was a photo of her, pregnant, with her arms around her stomach, standing in the kitchen doorway. Behind her was Lyn, rolling something on the counter. Biscuit dough, most likely. They’d always eaten a lot of biscuits, but Willa had craved them incessantly when she was pregnant. Willa was ostensibly the focus of the photo, featured in the center, but she’d come out slightly fuzzy. It was Lyn whose profile was sharp and clear. She wasn’t looking at the camera, but she was still turned slightly toward it, illuminated by the sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window. Covered in a fine dusting of flour, she looked like an angel.

What had Henry seen when he’d looked through that lens?

Because Willa was in the middle of it, he’d certainly seen a wife. One that he’d loved in a quiet, deliberate way. Willa had adored him, particularly in the early years of their marriage. And Henry had made her feel, if not adored, then certainly cherished, which had seemed permanent and holy.

And when he’d looked at Lyn, consciously or subconsciously focused on Lyn? He’d also seen a wife, certainly. The wife of his employee, partner, and friend. He’d seen a tenant and a servant and a parent. Willa couldn’t be sure what else Henry had seen in that moment. She’d never fully understood it, especially back then.

The only thing that had seemed certain was that Henry didn’t care for Lyn, which had always distressed Willa. Henry had mentioned early on in their marriage that he felt Edward had made a bad match. By that point, Edward and Lyn had already been married for years and were raising their daughter in the little house on the edge of the farm. Willa had liked Lyn immediately and was touched by how deeply Lyn and Edward evidently loved each other. Their affection was a palpable thing, something that sat alongside them in the room, constantly present. Because of this, Willa had argued with Henry when he’d made his “bad match” comment. She’d spoken up for Lyn, defended her, said she seemed like a very good wife.

But Henry had shook his head and told her sharply not to feel such familiarity. Not to feel such familiarity! They were closer with the Waters family than they were with anyone else, including relatives. But she’d stayed quiet, sensing that for some reason Henry needed to feel this way, and that she needed to let him. She’d bit her tongue when Henry had suggested Lyn spend her workdays elsewhere, and missed her silently when Lyn found employment at Brayer Plantation. But Willa had felt strongly all along that Lyn belonged with them on the farm. If only Henry had let her be.

Willa and Henry had tried for a baby for five years before they had their daughter. So when Henry was looking through the lens of his camera, partly at his pregnant wife and partly at a woman he couldn’t stand, was he feeling victorious? Or finally trapped?

The photos at the very end of the album were not pleasant to look at. They were in a separate envelope, tucked into a pocket on the inside of the back cover. The ones of the bodies were understandably gruesome, but even the still shots of the survivors had a pathos that repelled the eye. Some grief draws people in, but the kind Henry had captured was as harsh as a flashing hazard light. One look told a viewer it was best to steer clear.

Willa forced herself to look at the photos of Edward and Jiminy for a full second. They were battered. They didn’t look like themselves, much less each other, which was always the thing Willa naturally looked for. She wished she had more photos of them unharmed and alive, to help her shape happier memories.

She moved on to the others. There was her daughter standing on the porch, holding a kitten. Willa hadn’t let her keep the kitten in the house. She’d banished it to the barn, and it wasn’t long before it disappeared. It was still alive in this photograph, but her daughter’s seven-year-old face was creased and crinkled in concern. She looked precious and wounded, and this was what made Willa question her assumption that she’d been oblivious and resilient. This was the evidence that proved her wrong—that showed a soul in quiet crisis. Had Henry left it for her, to help her know their daughter better, as a parting gift?

The next photo was of Lyn, the only one Willa had ever seen that was taken with Lyn’s knowledge and presumed cooperation. In any of the others, Lyn was always in the background or on the periphery, engaged in some other task, unattuned to the camera’s presence. But in this one, she was facing the lens head-on, aware exactly of what was going on.

She was wearing an old overcoat that had belonged to Edward. She was simply standing, arms at her side, staring into the camera. And her face was blank. There was no evident emotion—no fury or sadness or irritation. None of the tension that usually appeared when she was in close proximity to Henry. In its place was a hollowness that hinted at a level of pain unknown to most. Her whole presence gave the impression that her heart had an open wound.

The last photograph in this final group was a self-portrait of Henry. Henry never let anyone else touch his camera, so he must’ve set the camera on some surface across from him. It had been cold out, to judge by the flush in his cheeks and at the tip of his nose. He, too, stared straight into the camera, unsmiling, a questioning expression on his prematurely aged face. He looked as though he’d just asked the camera something and had been waiting, hoping, for an answer. And that the timer had gone off at the exact second he’d realized he wasn’t going to get one.

Willa stared at this last photo the longest, her head filled with her own questions. In the final round of pictures Henry shot before he died, he hadn’t taken one of her. Was this because they were all for her? Had he intended her to be the viewer, and thus purposely trained his camera on those she’d need to understand? Willa wanted to think of it this way. She didn’t want to contemplate the alternative, that she just hadn’t made his final cut. That none of the moments he’d felt compelled to capture and memorialize had involved her.

Of course he hadn’t known he was going to die. Maybe she’d been next on his list.

Chapter 12

Lyn gazed across her kitchen table at the stranger sitting calmly in one of the chairs that Edward had carved. Jiminy hovered nearby, leaning in and out of the doorway like she was caught up in a current. The sheaf of onionskin paper lay on the table, flimsy against the wood.

“Do you recognize that report?” the man asked Lyn.

His name was Carlos, Lyn knew, and he was from Texas. Willa’s granddaughter had explained why she’d wanted to get him involved, touting his history of successful prosecution of unsolved civil rights crimes. Before the run-in with Roy and Randy Tomlins near the interstate junction, Lyn never would have been persuaded to cooperate. But that night had proven that the hatred that had stolen her husband and daughter was now actively threatening another loved one in the here and now. It wasn’t just about Lyn and her painful past. It was now about Bo—who looked so much like Edward—and a still-forming future. As the force of that realization struck her, Lyn had felt something stirring within, almost as though she was shifting out of neutral and into gear. She’d understood clearly that what had happened so long ago lived on, and she’d suddenly decided that she’d be damned if it outlived her. For the first time in forty years, she’d felt a compelling reason to stick around.

“No, I never saw this,” Lyn answered.

“Does it seem accurate, though?”

Lyn looked again at the first page of the onionskin pile. It was a yellowed transcript of her visit to the police station on June 24, 1966. She’d gone in two weeks previous to this visit in order to report that her husband and daughter were missing, but she’d been told that they’d probably just run off without her, and that it wasn’t the practice of the Fayeville sheriff’s office to get caught up in domestic disagreements.

Fourteen days later, the bodies of Edward and Jiminy were found, and Lyn returned to report their murder. The sheriff was dismissive, telling her that he didn’t have resources to waste on a silly woman’s delusions. According to him, it seemed likely that Edward and Jiminy had stopped to cool off in the river and gotten in over their heads. They didn’t know how to swim that well, did they? Did they? He pressed Lyn. He raised his voice to intimidate her, suggesting with his jabbing finger that she might be getting in over her head herself.

Lyn had stayed very calm and pointed out that bruises and bullet wounds suggested something other than drowning. She said they had been driving home from a town upstate, and someone had run them down and killed them. But the sheriff waved her off, lamenting her “overhyperactive imagination.”

Lyn remembered all this as she read the transcript in front of her:

Lyn Waters made unsubstantiated claim that her husband, Edward Waters, and her daughter, Jiminy Waters, were murdered. All evidence points to accidental drowning. No charges will be filed.

Lyn looked up at the man across her table.

“Does it seem accurate?” she repeated. “That’s what you asked?”

“I meant, does it accurately describe their attitude. Did you try to talk to the sheriff and was he that dismissive.”

“Yes,” Lyn answered.

Carlos nodded. Lyn reminded him of an olive tree, stately and gnarled. He was used to the resignation she emanated. He had seen her brand of empty expression on others, in previous cases. So much of the time the surviving relatives he encountered seemed defined less by the presence of ongoing life than by the absence of loved ones whose lives were cut too short.

“Do you remember it well? Do you mind talking about it?”

Lyn looked past him at Willa’s granddaughter, who stared back, suddenly self-conscious.

“I’ll just wait outside,” she said, slipping out the screen door.

Lyn was glad of this. She didn’t want her around while she talked about the real Jiminy.

“You have something against her?” Carlos asked.

His tone was completely dispassionate, suggesting it was fine by him if Lyn did. That he was just there to observe.

Lyn shook her head dishonestly.

“She shares your daughter’s name,” Carlos noted.

“Mmmmhmmm,” Lyn replied.

“Why does she?” he asked. “What’s the story there?”

Lyn took her time answering, silently remembering the day she’d first found out.

Willa’s daughter, Margaret, had called to let Willa know she was a grandmother. Lyn had been washing dishes, content to let the running water drown out the conversation. By the time Willa had hung up the phone and turned toward her, Lyn was drying plates with a freshly laundered towel. She couldn’t remember the year or the season, but because she was at Willa’s, it must have been a Tuesday or Thursday.

“It’s a girl,” Willa had said, her voice an odd, strained pitch.

Lyn looked up because of the tone. She wondered whether it meant that something was wrong with the baby, or if perhaps Willa was just being sensitive to the fact that Lyn would never have a grandchild of her own.

“Congratulations,” she said evenly.

Willa stood and took a few steps in Lyn’s direction. For a moment, Lyn thought she was going to touch her, and she braced herself. But Willa stopped, and rested one small hand on the counter.

“She named her . . .”

Lyn didn’t pause her drying. The fact that the baby had been named wasn’t earth-shattering news.

“She named her Jiminy,” Willa finished.

Lyn didn’t drop the towel, but it felt like something inside her was dropping things left and right.

“I don’t know why she did, Lyn. I didn’t even think she remembered. But she did love Jiminy, and I guess the name stuck in her brain.”

Lyn nodded, and kept drying. She set her posture and expression to communicate that she didn’t want to talk about it any further. Because Willa didn’t either, they’d never discussed it again.

Now, twenty-five years later, this brown-skinned out-of-state investigator was watching her, waiting for her to speak.

“Willa’s daughter loved Jiminy,” she finally offered. “And remembered her more than we thought she did.”

“Your daughter obviously left a deep and lasting impression,” Carlos replied. “Even on the mind of a child.”

“You have no idea,” Lyn replied.

She was frustrated that she couldn’t convey just what Jiminy had meant to anyone who came into contact with her. She’d been a miracle, really. She’d always been the most alive, interesting personality in any room. She’d been curious and bold, exceptionally smart and utterly charming. People had fallen for Jiminy whether they’d wanted to or not.

“Did you get along with Willa’s daughter, Margaret?” Carlos asked.

“For the first seven years of her life, we did. Then I lost interest.”

“After the murders.”

“There wasn’t much point.”

Carlos leaned back in his chair, so that its front two legs rose up in the air. Lyn winced, feeling the strain on the back two legs somewhere deep in her chest.

Carlos noticed and righted himself.

“Edward made them,” Lyn explained.

“They’re beautiful. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

Lyn nodded. She loved those chairs. She loved running her fingers over them. When she did, she felt almost like she was touching a part of Edward.

“How did Henry and Willa react to the murders?” Carlos asked.

Lyn closed her eyes for a moment. She saw Henry in the room with the doctor and the bodies. Saw him reaching for her, knew she’d stopped him with a stare. He and Willa might’ve wanted to give her comfort, but she’d moved beyond that by then.

She opened her eyes and stared at the wall.

“They were devastated, same as me,” she said. “They didn’t go with me to the police station, but they went separately. Equally,” she added with a wry half laugh. “They told the sheriff that there had been murders that needed to be prosecuted,” she finished, sober once more.

Carlos’s face remained still.

“Their report should be somewhere in here,” Lyn continued, shuffling the onionskin pile in front of her. “Find that one, too?”

Carlos shook his head.

“Not yet.”

Lyn stopped shuffling.

“It’s not in this pile?”

Carlos shook his head again. Lyn was silent for a moment.

“I see.”

“It doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” Carlos said. “Back then, people misplaced plenty they didn’t want to see the light of day. The sheriff might not’ve even had a report written in the first place, just to save him the trouble of tearing it up.”

“He had one written up of my visit,” Lyn said.

“He did,” Carlos agreed.

“So.”

“You said yourself Willa and Henry were devastated,” Carlos said. “I’m sure that they were. Didn’t Henry pass away not too long after?”

Lyn nodded. And she didn’t say it out loud, but that had probably been for the best.

 

Perched in his lifeguard station at the Fayeville pool, Walton Trawler heard all kinds of things people didn’t expect him to. They just forgot about him, sitting up in his chair, keeping his eyes on the water and his fishing hat on his head. They became accustomed to his steady alertness and grew to think of him as an object—as furniture that belonged with the pool, rather than a living, listening human. If they did remember his presence hovering just above them, they thought immediately of his age, and what they assumed was his poor hearing. They didn’t consider the possibility that all five of his senses worked as well as a twenty-year-old’s, and that he was consequently soaking up every interesting fragment of gossip that floated by. Sound carries over water, even the length of a swimming pool. Walton just sat and listened and learned even more about the town he already knew better than just about anyone. The truth was, his interest in gossip was one of the reasons he kept volunteering for this job, despite his age.

“Was she always trouble?” Gloria Travail was asking, with a flip of her frosted blond hair.

Walton had delivered Gloria twenty-four years ago. He’d taken out her tonsils when she was seven, and her appendix when she was nineteen. The sight of her tanned abdomen always reminded him that he hadn’t left a noticeable scar. Gloria flaunted her body for the other people at the pool, most of them women with children. She thrived on contentious relationships and delighted in being a friend one day, a foe the next. She had directed her question at Suze Connors, with whom she’d recently been fighting but had apparently made up. Suze was nursing her new baby under a towel. Walton double-checked to make sure the baby’s whole body was covered. He was there to save the lives of anyone who might otherwise drown, but sometimes he just felt like standing up on his chair and yelling at them all to get out of the sun. Wasn’t he failing at his duty by watching them slowly kill themselves with cancerous ultraviolet rays? He didn’t care as much about himself; he knew his days were numbered.

“I don’t know what she was like when she was in Illinois. It’s real different there,” Suze was saying. “But I never woulda expected something like this. I mean, can you imagine?”

“No, I absolutely cannot,” Gloria declared. “The thought of it makes me sick. Where’s her momma in all this? What’s her grandmomma doing? Though that Willa Hunt is an odd one, I’ve always thought.”

“I expect Willa’s just too old and tired and worn out to control her.” Suze shook her head sadly. “I told Jiminy to call me up. Told her I’d loveta see her. I wish she’d come to me first.”

Gloria patted her arm.

“Don’t blame yourself, now. You’ve had your hands full.”

Suze shrugged in a martyrish way and adjusted the towel covering her nursing baby. Her other three kids were playing Marco Polo in the shallow end of the pool, shouting and splashing. The youngest of them was outfitted in water wings that were blown up so tight they looked like they might pop.

“You’d never let one of your kids, would you?” Gloria asked.

“Are you joking?” Suze replied.

She sounded deeply offended.

“I wouldn’t, either,” Gloria agreed.

“This world’s hard enough,” Suze said sagely. “Life’ll bring you down if you let it, you don’t need to bring yourself down ahead of time. I just don’t know what she was thinking, I honestly don’t. He’s nice enough, apparently, but that’s not the point. He’s beneath her.”

“For real, sounds like,” Gloria said with a snort.

“You’re so bad,” Suze replied with a shake of her head.

“Maybe this isn’t even new for her,” Gloria continued. “Maybe he’s not her first.”

Suze shuddered.

“She should just move along and let Fayeville be.”

Gloria opened her dark tanning oil bottle and spread a fresh coat over her browning legs. Suze eyed them enviously. Gloria started giggling.

“What?” Suze asked.

Gloria capped the oil and looked up with a devilish grin.

“Would you rather . . .”

“Oh, Lord, Gloria,” Suze rolled her eyes and looked around to make sure her kids were out of earshot.

They were still in the pool, though Bryce was trying to hoist himself up the wrong way onto the waterslide now, followed by Savannah. Melody and her overinflated water wings watched. Suze moved her baby to her other breast.

“Go on,” Suze said.

“Would you rather screw a black or a spic?” Gloria asked, her voice low, her wicked smile wide.

The shriek of Walton’s whistle pierced the air.

“Not allowed!” he bellowed from the chair above them. “Stop right this second, that is NOT ALLOWED!”

He pretended he was screaming at the kids. Startled, Gloria and Suze covered their ears, and Suze’s newborn started wailing.

 

The first thing Bo saw when he pulled up to his aunt Lyn’s house was Jiminy sitting on the porch. He hadn’t expected her to be there, and he felt unprepared for an encounter. He shifted into reverse to back out before she saw him, but he was too late. She looked up.

He shifted back into drive and continued rolling up to the house, feeling silly for even contemplating flight.

“Hey,” he said as he climbed out. “I was surprised to see you here.”

“I came with Carlos,” Jiminy explained. “He’s talking with Lyn.”

Bo had yet to meet Carlos, though he appreciated what he and Jiminy were trying to do.

“How’s it all going?” he asked.

Jiminy shrugged her pointy shoulders.

“It’s going,” she said.

She sighed and looked up.

“I don’t mean to be like that, it’s going well, actually. We’re uncovering a lot. I’m just not sure how I fit into it all sometimes.”

She couldn’t keep the sadness out of her voice, and looking straight into Bo’s eyes had been a mistake. She longed to be comforted by him in ways that were no longer possible.

“It seems to me you’re the reason it’s all happening,” Bo replied. “I think that makes you God of the entire operation, which is a pretty good way to fit into anything. Though occasionally thankless, sure. People doubt you, turn their backs on you, take you for granted, take your name in vain. They’ll come back to you in the end, though. You just gotta hang in there. Take comfort in your omnipotence.”

Jiminy smiled, which made her almost beautiful. Her turned head set her face at a fresh angle, and Bo felt himself falling for her all over again. It wasn’t up to him, which was frustrating. It never was.

“Maybe I should come back another time, if they’re gonna be a while,” Bo said as he turned to leave.

“Are you studying a lot?” Jiminy asked.

“Not enough, probably,” he answered. “But I’ll pick it up,” he continued. “I’ve just been a little distracted.”

“By who?” Jiminy asked sharply.

Bo appreciated the jealousy in her voice and let himself fantasize briefly about reconciliation, but he knew it wasn’t a responsible option. For her sake, he had to be strong.

“No particular who. More of a what. Regular life stuff,” he answered. “Listen, I’m gonna head out now and come see Aunt Lyn this evening. I’ll catch up with you later on, okay?”

“No!” Jiminy protested.

She hadn’t meant to shout. She hadn’t meant to say no at all. It had just forced its way out of her, in visceral response to the idea of Bo leaving her again. The power of her objection startled them both.

“Everything all right out here?” came a voice from behind them.

Carlos was in the doorway. Behind him, Lyn looked concerned.

“Everything’s fine,” Jiminy said, struggling to regain her composure. “Carlos, this is Bo. Bo, please meet Carlos.”

“Hey, man,” Bo said, reaching out his hand.

“Pleasure,” Carlos said, smiling at him.

As the two men shook, Lyn moved out onto the porch.

“Anything wrong?” Lyn asked her great-nephew.

She hadn’t been expecting Bo in the middle of the afternoon. She worried something unpleasant had driven him to seek her out when he otherwise would have been studying under the hickory tree, divining the secrets of the mass of blood and muscle and tissue we humans dragged around day after day after day.

“Everything’s fine,” Bo reassured her. “I didn’t mean to interrupt, didn’t know you had company. Just wanted to check in.”

Lyn looked from him to Jiminy. She saw the flush in the girl’s cheeks and the agitation in both their postures. She sighed.

“There’s absolutely no reason you two can’t be friends,” she said.

Jiminy and Bo looked quickly at Lyn, surprised.

“We know that, Aunt Lyn,” Bo said.

“And we are,” Jiminy chimed in. “We will be.”

“No reason,” Lyn repeated. “No reason at all . . .”

She trailed off, suddenly feeling completely worn out. She knew they were all staring at her as she sank down to take a seat on the porch steps, but she kept her head bowed. Gravity had gotten the best of her for the day—she was ready to concede defeat.

From her new vantage point, she could see a village of ants stretching themselves thin from their hill toward unknown destinations through the grass and into the woods. She wondered if they ever slept as she watched a group of them carry a dead cricket on their backs. Such strength! Such endurance! She marveled at their ability to march steadily on, underneath such an outsized burden, myopically undeterred.

 

Later, at the Comfort Inn, Carlos flipped through the channels of his small, unsatisfactory television. He didn’t care what he watched; he was in search of the numbness that comes with staring at a screen in an artificially dark room on a sunny day. He needed to give his brain a rest.

He settled on a national newscast, which was breathlessly covering the story of a missing eighteen-year-old from a suburb of Minneapolis. Apparently, the girl had made a cell phone call to her boyfriend from the parking lot of a mall and mentioned that she was scared someone was following her. Her phone had turned up two days later in a Dumpster four miles away, but there still hadn’t been any trace of her. The newscaster gave an update on the hundreds of volunteers conducting all-night searches and urged anyone with information to please call. He showed a full-screen photo of the missing young woman, who had curly blond hair and a cherubic face, complete with dimples. She was adorable, and, Carlos guessed, also dead.